With Rookie Camps getting underway Wednesday, it's time to talk about the 2026 CFL season!

23 hours ago, Mike said:

"Best and most impactful" is literally an opinion, not a fact. He was not the most productive receiver in the league in 2025, either by volume or on a per-game basis. He is what he is at this point and I'm really of the belief that he's more of an electric highlight reel receiver than a winner, not to say he's not productive but he's not a player I'd be looking to add to my roster. He's a target vacuum who catches a relatively low percentage of the balls thrown his way.

One stat I've become a fairly big fan of is yards per target and Lawler registered at 10.02 last year.

Dohnte Meyers 12.13, Justin McInnis 10.82, Nic Demski 10.88, Keon Hatcher 11.64, Dejon Brissett 10.67 all more productive per target and all with a better balls caught % than Lawler too ... Lawler wasn't even the most reliable target on his team, he caught less of his targets (59.7%) than Kiondre Smith (73.5%) and Tim White (66.6%) and to me, that's a statistic that becomes even more impactful when you consider that he was 2nd in the league in targets with 144. The only receiver who really even comes close to being as unreliable as him with a comparable level of productivity is Eugene Lewis. Couple that with the fact that despite being targeted 144 times, Lawler didn't even rank in the top 25 in the CFL in YAC.

He's a highlight reel receiver, but he's not a winning football player. His numbers all point to the fact that he's productive, but he's also a relatively unimpressive player once the ball is in his hands and he's a drive killer. It's not a smear opinion on Lawler, I think he's a hell of a receiver and he's got some of the best go up and get it ability I've seen in a long time, but I just don't think it's anywhere near a fact that he's the "best" receiver in the CFL.

Yards per target is a flawed statistic in that it tries to measure a receiver's efficiency but doesn't account for route depth or QB play. It's also less sticky (predictive) in that it measures things outside a receiver's control (play calling, defence, target volume and overall QB play). To put this in context, yes, Lawler's yards per target was relatively "low" in your example (anything over 9.5 is generally considered pretty remarkable) but he also had the highest average depth of target in the league at 18.2 yards and high ADOT generally reflects a lower catch percentage and lower YAC total.

A better measure (and more predictive) statistic would be yards per route run because it strips away bias, measures overall offensive value and reflects a player's ability to both earn a target and do something with that target. Lawler has consistently put up elite numbers (top receiver's general post anywhere from 2.0 to 4.0 YPRR) and last year, Lawler was second in the league at 2.15 (behind only KeeSean Johnson at 2.29). His last year with the Bombers he posted a ridiculous 2.75 YPRR but he's consistently at the top of the CFL in this measure - it's part of the reason he got the bag he did.

Numbers are fun, right? Personally, I like to look at both YPRR and YAC independently but neither of those things replace the eye test. I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that Lawler isn't a playmaker with game breaking potential. In fact, every poster on this board has seen him single handedly take over games. Is he worth the money Hamilton paid? I don't think so but I'm not running the Cats.

13 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

wow not what i was expecting. I think i recall hearing they host some fight stuff.

DAZN is huge and the price just keeps going up every time they add more content. They carry every NFL game. Unfortunately I would guess that there is a very large portion of CFL fans who do not subscribe to DAZN. It's going to be a big uproar on the first Saturday night when thousands of fans can't find the game on TV. How many fans going to pay the 25-35/month for one CFL game per week?

1 minute ago, Atomic said:

DAZN is huge and the price just keeps going up every time they add more content. They carry every NFL game. Unfortunately I would guess that there is a very large portion of CFL fans who do not subscribe to DAZN. It's going to be a big uproar on the first Saturday night when thousands of fans can't find the game on TV. How many fans going to pay the 25-35/month for one CFL game per week?

my IPTV service I use on my streaming devices has a whack of DAZN channels in the Canadian Sports section...I pay I think 15 bucks a month and get like i dunno...5000+ channels tho I just remove all the listings for foreign stuff

1 hour ago, Rich said:

Current pricing for Dazn is $35 a month ($25 a month if you want to commit for the whole year). Through some gams on YouTube, will you need to pay for a YouTube subscription as well?

Yeah I'm not adding yet another subscription just for cfl. Guess it'll be cjob like back in the day and then wait for a pirated copy to hit the interwebs.

5 minutes ago, Booch said:

my IPTV service I use on my streaming devices has a whack of DAZN channels in the Canadian Sports section...I pay I think 15 bucks a month and get like i dunno...5000+ channels tho I just remove all the listings for foreign stuff

Same. Won't affect me at all unless my IPTV service gets nuked.

9 minutes ago, Booch said:

my IPTV service I use on my streaming devices has a whack of DAZN channels in the Canadian Sports section...I pay I think 15 bucks a month and get like i dunno...5000+ channels tho I just remove all the listings for foreign stuff

Same. Won't affect me at all. But I'm sure for many who use legitimate services it will be a shock.

11 hours ago, JuranBoldenRules said:

The real problem isn't paying Kenny Lawler 300k a year or not.

The problem is our US scouting has been the absolute shits going on 5 years. Can't win sustainably like that. Yeah we can go buy free agents, like Broxton, Ceresna, pay someone like Lawler. The fact we can hardly even find good US players let alone impactful ones basically since Schoen, Holm is a major problem. You win when you find those guys.

You could pay Lawler and he could break his arm or drive drunk, not renew his visa or whatever and not be playing anyways. You need a steady stream of good players to win. When we had that, we won. Now we're grasping at being a 9-10 win team.

Yep the loss of Rigmaiden has very much affected us imo. We just aren't finding the impact players we need to keep the cupboards full. We can all grouse about letting our guys get too long in the tooth, but nobody is behind them pushing them out.

46 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

wow not what i was expecting. I think i recall hearing they host some fight stuff.

Yes, they've had fights on there for years. They've aired a ton of big boxing matches (Canelo often has his fights on there) and have even shown UFC stuff (for non-US markets) in the past but it's mainly Bellator, PFL & KSW for MMA.

Love that the spot rates for Corus, Harvard and others just went up... Radio broadcasts on Saturday night is A-OK for me ...

The one good thing will be that this is expected to be a significant windfall for the league (I saw the number $500 million over 6 years floated around but that's just baseless Internet talk) and the salary cap will be going way up. It won't last long though when DAZN finds out that nobody's going to pay for their service ..

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by Noeller

4 minutes ago, Noeller said:

Love that the spit rates for Corus, Harvard and others just went up... Radio broadcasts on Saturday night is A-OK for me ...

The one good thing will be that this is expected to be a significant windfall for the league (I saw the number $500 million over 6 years floated around but that's just baseless Internet talk) and the salary cap will be going way up. It won't last long though when DAZN finds out that nobody's going to pay for their service ..

Ya, I don't like having to use DAZN too but if the $$$ is really good for the league and will keep the league alive, so be it.

34 minutes ago, bigg jay said:

Same. Won't affect me at all unless my IPTV service gets nuked.

yeah I been with same one for yrs...never any issue

So Dru Brown demoted to 2nd string by the looks of it. I wonder is this is just Dinwiddie mind games, or just wanting to get a way better look at Maier? Not sure what to make of this? Will Ottawa keep Brown at his salary to sit as 2nd string? Keep in mind they have 3 other QBs that looked very impressive in preseason game 1. Would Ottawa cut Brown loose or trade him? Would we be open to bringing him back if there was the possibility? I WOULD. At any rate, whoever shakes loose from Ottawa, I would be very interested in bringing in and having a look see. They can't keep them all. Dinwiddie is very impressive in his ability to guru QBs. What he got out of Arbuckle the last 2 seasons after his career looked DOA, how he got Kelly playing very good ball in a short amount of time etc.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by GCn20

I don't buy Mayor McCheese being an effective QB.

6 minutes ago, rebusrankin said:

I don't buy Mayor McCheese being an effective QB.

You don't have to only Dinwiddie does and it appears he's going to start Maier as QB1. I didn't think Arbuckle could take over effectively from Kelly either, but Dinwiddie is very good at getting the most out of his QBs. Right now it appears he values Maier higher than Brown.

1 hour ago, Atomic said:

DAZN is huge and the price just keeps going up every time they add more content. They carry every NFL game. Unfortunately I would guess that there is a very large portion of CFL fans who do not subscribe to DAZN. It's going to be a big uproar on the first Saturday night when thousands of fans can't find the game on TV. How many fans going to pay the 25-35/month for one CFL game per week?

yeah not cheap. I don’t mind if it’s got all the games, but i don’t want to be paying for tsn and dazn for cfl games.

1 hour ago, Noeller said:

Love that the spot rates for Corus, Harvard and others just went up... Radio broadcasts on Saturday night is A-OK for me ...

The one good thing will be that this is expected to be a significant windfall for the league (I saw the number $500 million over 6 years floated around but that's just baseless Internet talk) and the salary cap will be going way up. It won't last long though when DAZN finds out that nobody's going to pay for their service ..

500m over 6 years can’t be it that would be insane.

I can’t imagine that dazn would over spend to invest in the cfl, when the changes coming next year are such a huge risk.

9 minutes ago, rebusrankin said:

I don't buy Mayor McCheese being an effective QB.

I don’t either, but dinwiddie marches to the best of his own drum at qb. I suspect he wants to get a good look at mccheese, and wants brown to have to really scrap for the spot.

If they do go with mccheese, browns deal isn’t crazy but they would be well off if they sit on brown and trade him early to mid season to a team with qb injuries/sever disappointments. I wouldn’t cut a qb like that. Look at the junk qb state the league is in, guy like brown has good value.

13 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

I don’t either, but dinwiddie marches to the best of his own drum at qb. I suspect he wants to get a good look at mccheese, and wants brown to have to really scrap for the spot.

If they do go with mccheese, browns deal isn’t crazy but they would be well off if they sit on brown and trade him early to mid season to a team with qb injuries/sever disappointments. I wouldn’t cut a qb like that. Look at the junk qb state the league is in, guy like brown has good value.

Basically their salaries are set with $521K in hard money for the 2 of them, plus about $60K of playtime incentives each. I doubt either one is getting cut so salarywise doesn't matter who plays.

https://3downnation.com/2026/05/04/highest-paid-quarterbacks-for-2026-canadian-football-league-season/

9) Dru Brown, Ottawa Redblacks (A)

Hard money: $321,000
Maximum value: $387,000

Browns’s 2026 compensation comes from a $150,000 signing bonus, $131,000 base salary, $15,000 in marketing money, $15,000 in housing, and a $10,000 travel allowance. He has an additional $66,000 available in playtime, statistical, all-star and award incentives.

10) Jake Maier, Ottawa Redblacks (A)

Hard money: $200,000
Maximum value: $263,000

Maier’s 2026 compensation comes from a $94,600 base salary, $75,000 signing bonus, $15,400 in housing, $7,500 travel allowance, and $7,5000 in marketing money. He has an additional $63,000 available in playtime, statistical and award incentives.

1 hour ago, Noeller said:

Love that the spot rates for Corus, Harvard and others just went up... Radio broadcasts on Saturday night is A-OK for me ...

The one good thing will be that this is expected to be a significant windfall for the league (I saw the number $500 million over 6 years floated around but that's just baseless Internet talk) and the salary cap will be going way up. It won't last long though when DAZN finds out that nobody's going to pay for their service ..

If that number is anywhere near true, then all of a sudden Kenny Lawler's contract looks very good. I just can't see it though. That would more than double the existing TV deal. If so, the new commish deserves a ton of kudos for it.

1 minute ago, blue85gold said:

Basically their salaries are set with $521K in hard money for the 2 of them, plus about $60K of playtime incentives each. I doubt either one is getting cut so salarywise doesn't matter who plays.

https://3downnation.com/2026/05/04/highest-paid-quarterbacks-for-2026-canadian-football-league-season/

9) Dru Brown, Ottawa Redblacks (A)

Hard money: $321,000
Maximum value: $387,000

Browns’s 2026 compensation comes from a $150,000 signing bonus, $131,000 base salary, $15,000 in marketing money, $15,000 in housing, and a $10,000 travel allowance. He has an additional $66,000 available in playtime, statistical, all-star and award incentives.

10) Jake Maier, Ottawa Redblacks (A)

Hard money: $200,000
Maximum value: $263,000

Maier’s 2026 compensation comes from a $94,600 base salary, $75,000 signing bonus, $15,400 in housing, $7,500 travel allowance, and $7,5000 in marketing money. He has an additional $63,000 available in playtime, statistical and award incentives.

I agree that the QB number is doable if they keep Brown, which they likely do. A wild card is that they have 2 other QBs that have looked very impressive so far and they can likely only keep one of them unless they move Brown. A good QB prospect is going to shake loose out of Ottawa, maybe even 2 of them. Walters are you listening? Another possibility, I suppose, is that Dinwiddie is looking to showcase Maier in order to trade him? At any rate, this is wild speculation on my part at this point as Brown/Maier are likely to go nowhere for this season at least but it sure sets up a possibility of Brown being available next offseason IF Maier has indeed won QB1.

Edited 32 minutes ago32 min by GCn20

CBC reporting that the new deal is worth 500 million or 83.3 million per year. That's a massive increase. Would the revenue share get the SMS up this year? If so, the SMS increase would be pretty large. The CFLPA has to be very happy today.

Edited 28 minutes ago28 min by GCn20

9 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

CBC reporting that the new deal is worth 500 million or 83.3 million per year. That's a massive increase. Would the revenue share get the SMS up this year? If so, the SMS increase would be pretty large. The CFLPA has to be very happy today.

yeah...this is a significant increase...and with the new streams of rev coming in...and the rev sharing the players are coming out real good on this

An increase in SMS is I sure gonna happen, and what I'd like to see is adding a few additional roster spots for game day, as it would increase the overall talent and depth if an injury, or 2 in game occurs.

Regardless of how many, or how few eyes get the DAZN feed, it's gonna get new eyes, and it's also a far reaching streaming platform not only in N.America but abroad...it's a win even tho some people may have to watch a game on a delayed basis once it's over

4 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

CBC reporting that the new deal is worth 500 million or 83.3 million per year. That's a massive increase. Would the revenue share get the SMS up this year? If so, the SMS increase would be pretty large.

Not necessarily - the league revenue is reviewed at the end of each year and any increases go towards the next season. The increased TV revenue should mean more money for the players but it's up to the CFLPA to decide how they want to allocate it. They largely do put increases towards the cap though so I would expect another decent jump next year.

According to the CBA terms, the CFL established an initial baseline mark for defined league revenue during the 2022 season, which takes into account revenues for the league and its nine franchises. If revenues exceeded the initial baseline in subsequent seasons, that uptick can be added to the following year’s salary cap at the Players’ Association’s discretion.

2025 CFL salary cap limit jumps over $400,000 due to increased league revenues - 3DownNation

21 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

CBC reporting that the new deal is worth 500 million or 83.3 million per year. That's a massive increase. Would the revenue share get the SMS up this year? If so, the SMS increase would be pretty large. The CFLPA has to be very happy today.

These things have been years delayed. That's why that late push to the salary cap came after FA last year. The PA had just got the league financials from the year that gambling started bringing in revenue.